


tomorrow is yet to come (so we only have today)

by Meyou__greenblue



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Based on the Map of Tiny Perfect Things (Movie), Friends to Lovers, Groundhog Day, I watched the Map of Tiny Perfect Things and was inspired, It's just the same day over and over again, Lessons to be Learned, Louis and Harry are stuck in a time loop, M/M, No Smut, This reads very much like a coming of age netflix original, Time Loop, Which you should watch cuz its actually super cute, because it basically is, idk what else to tag, if that makes any sense at all, reference to a minor character death, there's no rules in a temporal anomaly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-14 05:01:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29786841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meyou__greenblue/pseuds/Meyou__greenblue
Summary: "Do you happen to know what day it is today?""Um, July 23rd.""Yes, yes. I know that. But how long has it been July 23rd?"The boy stares at Harry, his brow raised, for just a second too long. "Did you just... kind of quote Twilight at me?""That depends," Harry replies. "Are you also stuck in an infinite time loop of July 23rds like I am?"..A sort of Groundhog Day/ Edge of Tomorrow/ Map of Tiny Perfect Things-esque au where Harry and Louis get stuck living the same day over and over again and have to figure out how to get out of it.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	1. 0. prologue - july 23rd

**Author's Note:**

> So, I can't stop watching The Map of Tiny Perfect Things on Amazon Prime Video and/or don't have any other way to get rid of any of my creative energy so really, this fic just started writing itself... so. Here's hoping it actually becomes a finished fic and not just something I start and never complete (because I have a history of doing that) :-)))). 
> 
> I don't really have a planned upload schedule and I literally have like one other chapter pre-written so like, we'll see how this goes. Please don't expect too much from me. I'm posting this on a whim. I just want to see if people will actually read my writing. 
> 
> N e ways... enjoy!!!

**PROLOGUE**

**JULY 23RD**

**..**

When Harry opens his eyes, the clock that sits on the table beside his bed reads 8:28am.

The sunlight streaming into his room is yellow and bright and makes his eyes burn slightly and so he takes his time waking up instead. He blinks slowly a few times, letting his pupils adjust at their own pace so he doesn’t go blind before he’s even experienced life properly and stretches out his body limb by limb. He can feel the warmth of the summer sun on his face, and the back of his closed eyelids are painted an orange colour similar to that of the apricots his mum has got sitting in a bowl downstairs in the kitchen.

This was his favourite kind of morning growing up and still is at the ripe age of twenty-three. 

The kind where he wakes up to the birds outside his window - chirping and fluttering and just doing their own thing - instead of that wretched sound of that Marimba alarm tone blasting tinnily through his iPhone’s shitty speakers. The kind where the sun on his cheeks is the first sensation that he’s truly conscious of. The kind where he knows he’s got nothing but a free, school-less, responsibility-less day just waiting for him when he gets out of bed. There’s also the added bonus today of the smell of home cooked bacon that is currently wafting up from the kitchen downstairs. All of it is just the set up to a perfect summer day, the kind that one dreams about.

And it would be. The perfect summer day, that is.

If Harry hadn’t lived it 185 times already. 

He doesn’t even need to go downstairs to know that his mum and stepdad are down there already. Robin, with his tie haphazardly thrown around his neck so he won’t forget it, still half undone, barely sitting down in his chair as he rushes to finish his breakfast (an egg and cheese omelette, to be exact) so he’s not late for work. His mum is standing across the kitchen, leaning up against the counter and laughing into her coffee at her mess of a husband while she cooks her own breakfast (also an egg and cheese omelette).

Harry doesn’t even have to move from his bed to know that in approximately three minutes when Robin pushes his chair away from the table to dart out the door for work, he’ll accidentally elbow his coffee mug and it’ll tumble to the floor and smash into what seems like a million pieces. He’ll hesitate for a second, contemplating risking being tardy to clean up the mess he made, but Harry’s mum will shoo him off and assure him that she’s okay to sweep it up herself. 

Without even leaving his own home, Harry could tell you that over the next fourteen hours and thirty-two minutes, a cyclist will fall and break their arm, a teenage girl will get accepted to her dream university, and a baby with the name Stardust Dream will be born.

And from where he is at this exact moment, Harry knows that no matter where he is, or what he’s doing, at exactly midnight tonight Harry will fall asleep and then wake up again at 8:28am on July 23rd and the whole day repeats itself all over again like some sort of never ending nightmare.

Over _one hundred_ times already Harry has woken up at 8:28am with the sunlight streaming into his room, to the smell of bacon drifting up from downstairs, and the date on the calendar reading July 23rd. Over _one hundred_ times already, Harry has been forced asleep at midnight, hoping that eventually he’ll wake up to a different time on the clock and the words JULY 24 will be front and centre on the homescreen of his phone but to no avail.

At this moment in time, Harry Styles has lived each and every possible version of July 23rd that he can think of, changing a little something here or a little something there to see what might happen. Begging and praying that one decision one day is what breaks him from the cycle.

He’s used his never ending July 23rd to prevent car accidents from happening, to save people from getting pooped on by birds, to rescue dogs that have escaped from their backyards. He’s picked the winning lottery numbers sixty seven times just because. He’s stolen cars, robbed banks, kissed random strangers on the street, done whatever he’s wanted with no qualms because at the end of the day none of it matters. He just wakes up the next day with it all back the way it was before, like some giant reset button is getting pressed somewhere by some sort of cosmic entity that seems to hate his fucking guts.

He’s done all of it and more. Over and over and over again.

Because - for whatever fucking reason - the Universe has decided that he, Harry Styles, the twenty-three year old who still lives with his parents and has no specific plans for his future, is destined to live in an infinite loop of July 23rd’s with absolutely no idea how to get out, or why it even started in the first place. 

It’s sort of like that movie _Groundhog Day_ with Bill Murray where’s he’s stuck living the same day over and over again until he figures out how to fuck his boss or something (Harry refuses to watch it and only briefly read the Netflix description once). The catch in this particular situation though, is it’s 185 days later and Harry still can’t figure out why the hell he - out of all people - is stuck like this. It’s not like he’s some sort of shitty person with a lesson to learn, or that he secretly has a boss he has to figure out how to fuck or whatever. There’s no unrequited love interest he needs to confess his undying adoration for, or long-lasting grudges he needs to learn to let go of. It’s doubtful that he’s stuck because he somehow has the cure to cancer just swirling around in his brain and waiting to get out.

He’s just some kid who likes to play video games for way too long and forgets to wash his dishes sometimes. That’s it. None of this ‘Handsome Lead in a Netflix Original’ bullshit he’s been thrust into.

So, why has the Universe decided to make him the main character of some ridiculous world saving quest? He has no idea. And at this point he’s just over it.

He’s the only one who seemingly knows that this is going on. The only one who has any sort of consciousness that the same day has happened over one hundred and eighty times in a row. Not even his best friend, Niall Horan, has been sucked into this mess with him. 

And so, he’s alone. And Harry doesn’t exactly do well when he’s alone. 

Not that he constantly and annoyingly has to be surrounded by people all the time, but he’s definitely an extrovert by all accounts. He simply thrives when there are other people around him. (Does that make him slightly clingy? Sure. Have multiple boyfriends broken up with him because they felt smothered? Yes. But that’s besides the point). Harry needs to be in the proximity of other people in order to function to his fullest capacity. And so, these zombie-like, might-as-well-be-dead people, who have no awareness at all of the fact that they’ve lived the same day and done the exact same things more than a hundred times over, swayed only slightly when Harry decides to switch something up, are _not_ it. 

And oh, how lovely it must be to be those people, just so blissfully unaware of what’s going on. Who have absolutely no idea of the fact that their lives are on infinite pause, that time has stopped moving in a forwards direction. That the test or presentation or job interview tomorrow that they’re so worried about today, that feels so all-encompassing in the moment, is just not going to come.

Well, unless Harry figures out what the fuck is going on. 

And oh, how Harry wishes he could just forget about the whole thing. Forget about the fact that there’s clearly something he needs to do to get out of this mess, a lesson he needs to learn or whatever, something he’s most likely doing wrong to keep him here, stuck indefinitely in a forever loop of July 23rds. Forget about the fact that the fate of literally the entirety of humankind currently residing on the planet Earth now rests in the palm of his ring-clad, black nail polish-painted hands.

Except, he doesn’t.

Forget that is.

Instead, he spends the next fourteen-ish hours, trudging through yet another July 23rd, dragging his feet and searching desperately for the answers, coming up short every single time.

Once the sun has gone down and the world is asleep and the clock reads only a few minutes until it strikes midnight, Harry finds himself up on the roof of his childhood home (not for the first time over the course of his many, _many_ , July 23rds). His back pressed against the rough shingles, watching as the stars twinkle in the sky above him.

Once he’d figured out that he could be anywhere when it got to twelve o’clock and not suffer any sort of bodily harm the next day, Harry began to end his nights outside. Something about the quiet that comes with the late hour - when the entire neighbourhood is asleep and the streets are empty of cars driving back and forth, and Harry’s own breathing is the only thing making any sort of noise- is comforting to him. Even after all the times he has lived the exact scene over and over again, finishing his day lying on the roof and staring up into the infinity of space is the only thing that hasn’t gotten old. Somehow, the never ending darkness that is the night sky manages to look completely different to Harry no matter how many times previous he’s looked up at it. Each day it seems like there’s a new star he hasn’t noticed before, or a glimpse of a comet that he’d missed the other hundred nights prior.

It’s like, for every thing that stays the same during the day, there’s something new in the star-speckled sky for Harry to discover at night. 

His very last chance of experiencing something new before the whole routine starts over again.

And each time he looks up, and sees the moon shining back down, he’s reminded that somewhere out there, laced within the fabric of time and space, is the solution to his problem. Somewhere, placed among the forever sparkling stars, is the answer to Harry’s infinite July 23rds.

And maybe, just maybe, the more he looks and the longer he takes to make sure that he has memorized this frozen picture of space that’s laid out right in front of him... the easier it will be to find the answer when it finally does show itself.

This is the thought that brings Harry to the roof every night. This is the thought that keeps him in place until the very last second before the clock hits midnight, even when the shingles start to dig into his back and scratch his skin and it doesn’t seem worth it anymore.

This is why, on this particular July 23rd, Harry is, once again, out on his roof wondering just how many nights it would take to count each and every single star. And why - even though he has no reason to -, he feels the sudden urge to spare a glance across the street.

At first, Harry thinks he’s imagining it. That the movement he sees that looks suspiciously like a person walking down the sidewalk is just some shadows and a trick of the light from the streetlamp. For a moment, he just stares, squints his eyes in an attempt to see better in the dark and tries to figure out if this is real or not, if he _does_ actually, truly sees someone walking past his house on the other side of the road or not. Then, he calls himself crazy in his head a few times for good measure, because this is literally the like one millionth time he’s done this, and he’s clearly imagining things because nothing ever changes like this.

He’s sat on this roof and waited until midnight at _least_ one hundred other times. One _hundred_ times he’s sat on this perch on the roof and taken in the world around him, making a conscious effort to try and not miss anything. _One hundred and eighty fives_ times he’s lived this exact same night. And not once has anyone ever walked down the street, let alone right in front of his house. 

Even on the nights when Harry’s decided to look out at the night from inside his room instead, no one has ever been on the road like this. _Ever_.

But then, the person trips slightly, a curse echoing out into the otherwise empty road, and Harry snaps out of it.

_Oh my god_ , he thinks to himself. _Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. This is real. That is a real person. Oh my god._

In a scramble, he pushes himself up into a standing position and checks his watch.

The numbers 11:58 flash up at him and Harry nearly screams.

Two minutes.

He’s got only two minutes to figure out who the hell this person is, where they came from, and why they’re here. Why this particular night is somehow different than the 184 times before.

Two minutes before he’s forced back in time to 8:28am the morning of July 23rd yet again.

_What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck_.

What the _fuck_ is he supposed to do!? He’s up on the roof, no shoes on, and less than a hundred and twenty seconds left to figure out a plan before it all goes to shit. His mind is racing at a million miles a minute, and yet there’s nothing tangible for Harry to grab onto, nothing that’s standing out. His body is frozen and his knees are locked. _What the fuck_. Maybe this is the key, he thinks. Maybe this is what he’s been looking for this whole time. Maybe this is the answer to his problem.

_And maybe he’s going to miss his chance to fix the whole thing if he doesn’t stop just standing there on top of the roof like a fucking idiot and actually does something,_ his brain screams at him.

Right. Yes. Moving. He should do that sometime.

Just as the thought crosses his mind, Harry wobbles in place slightly, his feet sliding down the shingles just enough to freak him out. He looks over the edge as it inches closer to him and he contemplates the pros and cons of just jumping down (despite the fact that it’s way too high) for about six seconds before he decides that it doesn’t matter and that any injuries he may acquire will simply heal in all but one minute and that getting to this person is so much more important than a broken bone or two, and he just does it.

Harry free falls for all of a single millisecond before he lands with a thump on his front lawn. It’s less painful than he was expecting but he still somehow manages to end up in a pile that is more criss-crossed limbs than it is an actual person. Which. Very on brand, to be completely honest. Harry’s never been the most graceful of people ever so why would this be any different? As he lies there, pretzel-ed on the damp, summer grass, he feels embarrassed for the briefest of moments, looking around to see if anyone watched the previous scene unfold and are now laughing at him from somewhere in the comfort of their homes. Then he remembers the task at hand and why he’s even in this predicament in the first place.

Person. Time loop. July 23rd, yadda yadda yadda. 

He glances once again at the time. 

11:58:56. 

Harry attempts to untangle himself as quickly as he can, which is no small feat and takes more exertion than is probably necessary (he now understands where Niall was coming from that one time he described Harry to someone as a “newborn baby giraffe with vertigo”). Once he’s back on two feet he immediately forces himself into a run, begging his legs to move as fast as possible, his bare feet pushing up from the concrete sidewalk with as much force as he can muster.

Pebbles stab into the bottom of his feet to the point where he’s pretty sure there’s blood, and his lungs burn from the sudden physical activity but he wills himself to go on.

_Left, right, left, right,_ he chants in his head, making sure he doesn’t trip over any wayward sticks, feeling every bit like the slow motion scene in a war movie where the protagonist is running for their life as a bomb dramatically explodes in the background.

The person is still so far away that they’re just a silhouette and Harry literally cannot get any oxygen to fill his lungs. 

_Fuuuck, he really should have taken some sort of sport in school_. _This is pathetic_. 

Harry checks his watch again.

11:59:31.

Thirty fucking seconds. 

Fuck. It’s useless.

He’s never going to reach the person in time. They’re too far away, Harry’s pretty sure his lungs have shrivelled into nothing, and it’s just too close to midnight that even if he does manage to catch up, it’s not like they’re going to have any time to be able to explain what’s going on before it all resets.

Harry stops in the middle of the street, keeled over with his hands on his knees and taking in gasping breaths, resigned to the fact that this is over and he’s failed until an idea comes to his head, and in one final, desperate, last ditch effort to figure out what the hell is going on, he yells. He digs somewhere deep into his diaphragm, uses all the oxygen in his lungs and shouts as loud as he possibly can, “Hey, you!”.

And somehow... by the grace of God... the person hears him. 

Perfectly timed so that they’re standing directly under the glow of the streetlight (seriously!? What are the fucking odds?), the person stops and spins on their heel. It’s a boy, from what Harry can tell, around his age and dressed in a black hoodie and matching black sweatpants. Harry stares, watches as he opens his mouth to speak, and gets one, quick, fleeting glimpse of the brightest, bluest eyes he’s ever seen before in his entire life...

And then the whole world fades to black.


	2. 01. one eighty six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter Niall.

**JULY 23RD (AGAIN)**

**#186**

**..**

The first thing Harry does when he wakes up at 8:28am on July 23rd for the 186th time is he screams into his pillow.

After one quick glance at the clock that confirms that it is in fact July 23rd (again), and his random one night run in with the blue-eyed stranger wasn’t his key to get out of this time loop - aka infinite disaster, aka temporal anomaly, aka whatever the fuck you want to call it -, Harry immediately flips over, drives his face as deep into his pillow as he possibly can, and lets out the loudest, most frustrated scream of his entire life. He screams so loud in fact that his mother rushes up the stairs in a flurry and asks him if he’s okay. 

(He’s not. But he writes it off to her as a bad dream and promises he’s fine so that she leaves).

The _second_ thing Harry does when he wakes up on July 23rd for the 186th time is he jumps out of bed, gets dressed as quickly as possible and he leaves his house en route to his best friend’s house. Because if he’s going at this, he’s damn well not going at it alone. And so if that means enlisting Niall - in all his blonde haired, blue-eyes, Irish glory - for help then so be it.

Plus, going to Niall’s gives him an excuse to pick up McDonald’s along the way for breakfast sandwiches and hashbrowns.

No judging, alright? He needs his brain to be properly energized and fed if he’s going to try and figure out what the fuck he’s supposed to do now and there’s nothing better to help with that than shitty fast food that’s equal parts disgusting/ good for the soul. Plus, if he’s going to wake Niall up this early to force him to help Harry with his problems then it’s only fair he comes bearing gifts, or else Niall will most likely never speak to him ever again. And by ‘most likely’ he means Niall would literally never forgive him. _Plus_ , it’s McDonalds, so. Why the fuck not?

Anyways.

On his way to Niall’s, with the McDonald’s bag clutched in his hand, the smell of deep fried potatoes and bacon that’s probably not even real meat wafting behind him as he walks, Harry takes the time to try and list out in his mind all the things that he knows for sure to be true at this very moment. He comes up with three:

  1. It’s still July 23rd because of _fucking course_ it is. Why wouldn’t it be? The only consistent thing in Harry’s life and it’s the fact that he can’t seem to stop living the same day over and over and over again. Fantastic.
  2. There is now some boy out there out there who Harry’s pretty sure is also experiencing the same thing and living the same day over and over and over again and Harry really needs to find him to figure out what the hell to do.



And

  1. Said boy has the most gorgeous eyes that Harry has ever seen in his entire life.



That last thing is not quite as important as the other two but still worth jotting down in Harry’s opinion. He’s a sucker for pretty eyes. Especially deep, bright, sparkly, blue ones like this stranger’s. Sue him. 

Moving on.

Of course the most glaring fact and important fact of them all is that there _is_ someone, and that Harry is not completely and entirely alone in this thing (read: shitfuckery) anymore. There is potentially someone else who is also living their 186th July 23rd in a row and may have answers as to why, or how, or what to do to stop it which makes Harry hopeful. Well, as hopeful as he can be given the circumstances.

Unless...

Unless it was just a coincidence and something that Harry did that specific day created a butterfly effect that made it so this person just so happened to walk by this one single time and not all the others? But probably not. One hundred different versions of the same day and just one of them makes it so a person walks by Harry’s house so close to midnight? Doubtful. But also not impossible? Who knows... Really, just, who the fuck even knows besides the stranger?

And so that’s exactly why Harry needs to find this person to figure out if they are either a) just another July 23rd zombie with no idea what’s going on or b) another poor fucker who’s had to deal with this bullshit 186 times in a row too. (Option b) being the prime answer here).

But _how_ is he going to do so is the question.

It’s not like he did anything crazy and out of the ordinary yesterday. He just went to Niall’s in the afternoon like he had a hundred times before, played FIFA like he had a hundred times before, watched Niall _lose_ at FIFA like he had a hundred times before. If anything would have led to this stranger walking down Harry’s street it would have happened already, right?

Right?

_Right!?_

Oh god, it's not even nine am yet and just the thought of trying to figure it out is making Harry’s head hurt so bad he wants to gauge his eyes out. Too bad there’s not some sort of instruction manual for people who are stuck in a time loop out there for him to read so he can figure out what the fuck is going on. How amazing would that be? Just a step by step guide on what to do… A boy can only dream.

Fuuuuuck. 

At the next crosswalk Harry takes a moment to press his fingers to his temples while he waits for the light to change, just hoping and praying and willing that the pressure will help the pain to disperse so that the thumping of his blood will stop echoing in his ears, but instead all he sees is _blueblueblue_ behind his closed eyelids and it makes him want to scream at the top of his lungs all over again. Or maybe jerk off. One or the other. 

(Or both. Why not both?).

Jesus, he needs to get a grip. He doesn’t even really know what this person looks like, barely even got a glance of them and here he is, half-hard in his jeans, like some sort of heathen teenager who’s never touched another person before (because it's just not true. He _has_ , thank you very much, more than once.). He’s literally pathetic. Why is he even thinking about jerking off when the future of the world is literally resting in his hands? Hands that should be busy saving the planet, not wasting time jerking off.

God, it’s too early for this. 

With that thought, he opens his eyes and crosses the street like he wasn’t just thinking of touching his dick while in public and continues his journey to Niall’s house.

Harry arrives just as Niall’s parents, Maura and Bobby, are leaving for work. They exchange quick pleasantries - Harry promising that he’ll definitely come over for dinner sometime soon and Maura asking him to please say hi to his mother for her - and then they part ways, the adults to their cars and Harry inside to go and wake the beast.

Here’s hoping the hashbrowns are enough to save himself from the wrath that is Niall in the morning.

**..**

A few hours later finds Harry and Niall in Niall’s basement like every other July 23rd before it, mulling over Harry’s options while _New Girl_ plays on Netflix in the background.

“I mean, you could just spend the next couple days scouring the town in different orders so you don’t miss him, no? It’s not like there’s that many places to go around here, I’m sure you’ll run into him eventually,” Niall suggests. “If he's even from around here… Fuck, I guess there’s the possibility that he’s not, huh?”

Nick Miller groans onscreen and Harry mirrors it, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees and burying his head in his hands. 

He’s so screwed. Just completely and entirely screwed. The universe has got some weird vendetta against him for literally no apparent reason and now he’s just supposed to be the answer to the entire thing? How? And how is that even fair? He’s just supposed to go at this whole thing alone or find this stranger who may or may not be able to help him? There’s infinite ways that this whole thing could go. (Literally). And so how is Harry supposed to know which way to choose? Out of the literal million… no, _billion_ possibilities? 

Sure, he’s got Niall’s help for now, but in sixteen hours he’s just going to be useless again and Harry will have to explain the whole thing all over and Niall will most likely just come up with the same things. It’s not like they can build on the pre-existing ideas that they think of after a nice long think on it. No… the world fucking resets back to ground zero when the clock strikes midnight.

And yeah, sure, Niall took the whole infinite-time-loop thing quite well when Harry explained it over breakfast (as he knew he would of course, after having some version of this conversation many a time before), and was completely open to trying to help Harry figure out what to do, but so far neither of them have been able to come up with anything even remotely close to plausible and Harry is about ten seconds away from just giving up and saying fuck it to both the universe and July 23rd in their entirety.

“I’m fucked, Niall. Well and truly fucked. I’m going to be stuck in this shit forever,” Harry says into his palms. One of Niall’s hands reaches out to rub his back and Harry just sinks down further, feeling as pathetic inside as he must look on the outside. 

“No you’re not, mate. You’re one of the smartest people I know, you’ll figure it out,” Niall responds, in what Harry can only guess is his ‘trying to be supportive’ voice. It doesn’t help though, it just makes Harry want to cry instead. 

“And if I don’t?” Harry replies, sitting back up and turning to Niall. There’s something like panic starting to build in his chest that he can’t stop. “Then what, Ni? I’ll never be able to move forward, grow up, fall in love…” 

The realization makes Harry want to slam his head against a wall.

He stands up and starts to pace in front of the couch, Niall’s blue eyes following as he walks back and forth. He scrubs a hand over his face to try and relax but it doesn’t work. There’s literally nothing he can do, and now he’ll never get married, or have kids, or get old and cynical and be the guy who tells the neighbourhood kids to get off his lawn or whatever old people do.

Oh my god, he’s going to be _twenty-three_ forever. 

Nobody even likes you when you’re twenty-three. 

Fuck. 

Fuck, fuck, fuck. 

Harry stops his pacing and collapses back on the couch in a huff and stares up at the ceiling, watching the dust as it floats around in the empty air above him and wishing that’s what he was. Just dust. With no conscious thought, or feelings, or assignments from the universe to save the world. Just a little speck of dust with no purpose except to float around and land on people’s shit and be annoying. Yeah, being a speck of dust sounds like the dream right about now. 

“Maybe this is the universe telling me to kill myself, Niall,” Harry says (maybe as a joke, maybe seriously) after he contemplates his life for a moment but stopping just before he gets to the point of an existential crisis. He doesn’t look over but he can tell that Niall is staring at him, mouth agape, wondering something along the lines of _what the fuck, Harry_. “I mean, think about it,” he continues anyways. “Just ending it all. Dying… It’s the only thing I haven’t tried yet, so.” He throws his hands up in defeat. “Maybe that’s the answer. The solution to this whole mystery. Maybe it’s my destiny...” 

When he finally looks over at Niall, Niall’s already looking back back at him with an upward turn of his lip. He claps Harry on the shoulder, uses his other hand to shovel a palm full of crisps into his mouth (They literally just ate two hours ago… also, where the fuck did he even get Doritos from? Sweet Chili Heat flavour though, nice) and says, “No offense H, but I don’t think the universe cares about you enough for that to be your destiny.” He shoves Harry to the side and Harry just tips over onto the couch, not caring enough to even try and bother to use the energy to keep upright. Niall shimmies down beside him until they’re just two blobs sinking into the fabric, both just staring blankly ahead, a scene that has played many times before in this exact spot. He continues to speak, talking with his hands as he explains, “One human life for the whole of the world? Seems like a useless trade if you ask me. Plus, if the universe wanted you dead that bad it would have killed you itself by now, I reckon.”

Niall looks over at Harry and Harry looks back.

“You think?” Harry asks.

Niall nods and then turns his attention back to the tv. “I mean there’s been plenty of time in your life for like, a freak accident or a deadly disease or whatnot.”

“That’s true I guess,” Harry replies. The two of them sit in silence for a moment, just breathing in time with each other and half watching Netflix and half in their own worlds. Or, well. Harry is at least. All of a sudden he sits up slightly and snaps his fingers, pointing at Niall. “Hey! Remember that time I fell out of the tree when we were kids and broke my arm? Maybe that was the universe trying to kill me. Or when I almost got hit by that car that one time. Or that time I got food poisoning and was puking my guts out for days. Or just the other day when-”

“The universe isn’t trying to kill you, Harry,” Niall says, pushing him back down. 

“But we don’t know that for sure!” Harry grunts as he struggles to sit up against the weight of Niall’s hand. Stupid fucker is strong. And with just one hand too? Damn. Maybe Niall's been secretly working out all this time. Or maybe Harry’s just weak. The whole ‘saving the world’ thing does take a lot out of a person, you know. Maybe he needs to go to the gym, maybe that’s the key.

Niall rolls his eyes and clicks the _Next Episode_ bubble that appears on the screen once Harry resolves on giving up and properly settling in on the couch. Not like his problem can be solved today anyways, right? Might as well just let himself enjoy the rest of the day with his best friend as much as he possibly can and just start again tomorrow. (Well, as much of tomorrow as the same day over again can be). 

He tries to sit back and relax and not let his mind wander too much to solutions and ideas and whatnot but it’s easier said than done.

He knows he’s said it a million times before but this is literally the _universe_ they’re talking about. This is seven billion peoples' lives that are being affected. How can he _not_ try his hardest to figure out what is happening? Sure, the other people don’t know if he just chills and spends the day not trying to find the solution but _he’ll_ know and it’ll weigh guilty on his conscience if he just gives up now.

And so he lets himself get stuck in his own head for a while, barely registering what’s going on around him as he runs over a hundred more ways he may be able to find this stranger and in turn save the world.

Which is why he actually jumps when Niall speaks again, an episode and a half of silence later. 

“It can’t be that bad though, is it?” Niall asks.

“Hm?” Harry hums in question, not actually hearing what Niall said on account of his heart nearly beating out of his chest in surprise. 

“You know, the whole-” Niall pauses the tv and gesticulates with the hand holding the remote as he tries to find the words. “Time loop. Infinite July 23rd thing. Whatever you want to call it.”

Harry squints, trying to figure out what his friend is attempting to say. Niall must sense his confusion because he huffs and sits on the edge of the couch, still waving his hands around while he speaks and nearly hitting Harry in the face a couple times.

“I mean... it’s not like you can get older or fatter or uglier. You always know exactly what’s going to happen so it’s never a surprise. Plus, you can do anything you want and if you fuck up or it doesn’t go your way then you can just change it the next time. It’s like infinite do-overs. Sounds pretty awesome if you ask me.”

And Harry understands where Niall’s coming from. He does.

The first hundred times _were_ awesome.

He got to do whatever he wanted, no consequences because he knew it would just reset the next day anyways. He could eat what he wanted and not get fat, if he hurt himself it would be healed when he woke up, he could smash the windshields of every car down his street and they’d be fixed again in the morning. It was cool. Being able to spill his deepest, darkest secrets to Niall and just have them erased from his memory the next day. But eventually, sometime around the 150th time of living the exact same day over again, the novelty started to wear off and Harry found himself frustrated every time he woke up and the clock read 8:28am. 

When you know what’s going to happen every single second of a day, it stops being fun. 

It just stops being fun and starts to get very lonely instead. 

And so, frankly, Harry’s just over it now. 

Which, he’s explained to Niall before. But. Well…

“Don’t you feel like the king of everything?” Niall asks after Harry takes just slightly too long to answer.

_More like the last man on Earth_ , Harry thinks to himself and then outwardly he just shrugs. “I dunno, it’s just repetitive now... Like. There’s only so much I can do a hundred times over before it gets boring and I’m sick of it, you know?”

“Like, when you make too much food and then you have to eat the same thing for like a week straight. I feel you, man," Niall deadpans and he looks so genuinely serious when he says it that Harry can’t stop the laughter that bubbles up from somewhere deep in his chest.

“Sure, Niall,” he says around a chuckle. “Just like that.”

Instead of unpausing the show, Niall offers Harry a controller. “FIFA?” he asks.

“What? So I can watch you lose to me multiple times in a row?” Harry says teasingly.

“That’s tough talk for someone who’s just as bad at playing fake football as he is at real football,” Niall responds. “I never lose.”

Harry just smiles.

At least there’s still one advantage to living in a time loop.

**..**

Harry and Niall play FIFA for the next five hours.

Niall loses every time.

**..**

Eventually Niall gives up, ranting about the unfairness of playing against someone who knows what’s happening and suggests they order pizza instead (Harry insists on paying as an apology, Niall agrees. Doesn't matter anyways, the money will just be back in his bank account after midnight so, no skin off his back.). And so they order the biggest pizza that they can, fill it with whatever toppings they can think of, grab a few beers and set up camp in Niall’s backyard for some fresh air as they eat dinner.

It’s nearing seven o’clock by the time the pizza arrives, the sun only starting to go down and the humidity of the day finally breaking.The two boys lounge outside in their hoodies and shorts, watching as large, fluffy clouds act as the canvas for the lowering sun, the sky just beginning to paint itself in hues of purple and pink. They scarf down pizza and beer as the start of the perfect cotton candy sunset comes together above the horizon.

The change of scenery helps Harry feel like he’s actually living a new day for once and so he basks in it, and tries his absolute hardest to not think of the blue-eyed boy and saving the world for just a little bit. He’s actually doing a pretty good job, if he does say so himself, until-

“So, tell me about this boy you’re trying to find then?” Niall says sometime between his fourth and fifth slice of pizza. He waggles his eyebrows at Harry, “Do you even know what he looks like? Is he fit?”

Despite the fact he only caught a glimpse of this boy for about two seconds, in the dark, while he was struggling to find air to survive, he was able to get a good grasp of what the boy looked like, enough to recognize him if he was walking down the street again at least. At Niall’s question he tries his best to keep it at bay, but Harry can’t stop the blush that spreads across his cheeks at the mention of the handsome stranger.

Sure, it was barely long enough to get a full picture of what this boy looked like, but from the information Harry was able to gather in the moment he did see was enough for him to know that yes, the boy was fit. And not just in the ‘oh, yes I’m a boy who likes boys and you’re a boy who is fit’ way, but the ‘no, like… no matter who you are or what your sexual preference is, you can definitely admire the aesthetics of this boy and agree that he is absolutely beautiful’ way. 

In that brief moment, Harry was able to catalogue the boy’s gorgeous eyes (obviously and he has not stopped thinking about them for a single second since) but also what looked like cheekbones cut by the gods and eyelashes that _literally_ dusted his cheeks when he blinked. 

None of the above are what he’s going to tell Niall though.

“I mean, I’m sure he is. Not a despicable creature at least,” Truth. “I barely got a glance though,” Truth. “Blue eyes,” Truth. “Not particularly my type from what I could tell.” Lie. 

Lie lie lie. 

Harry has never been such a liar in his entire life. 

Harry’s mental picture of the boy pops up in his mind again: Soft brown hair, seemingly shorter and smaller than Harry, perfect for cuddling (What? Who said that? Not Harry). But also still looks like he wouldn’t take anyone’s shit, probably fights with words instead of fists. Was wearing checkered Vans. Yeah… 100% Harry’s type.

“So, you're into him?” Niall responds.

Harry chokes on the sip of his drink he chooses to take at that moment at Niall’s blunt question, a few tears stream down his face against his accord. Unable to speak past the coughing, he retaliates by aiming his crumpled up napkin at Niall’s head. Niall ducks out of the way, Harry scowls.

When he can finally breathe and form words again, what comes out his mouth is, “What the fuck, Niall? What part of that suggested I was into him?”

“The part where he’s a boy and you’re you?”

This time Harry throws the empty beer can that’s sitting on the table to his left. This time he doesn’t miss. 

The satisfying _thwap_ of aluminum against face sounds through the silent summer air into Niall’s backyard. 

“I’m not _that_ desperate, you twat,” Harry counters.

Niall looks at him disbelievingly and Harry contemplates throwing another can at his smug face. A full one this time maybe.

“When was the last time you got laid, H?” He says as he rubs at the red spot on his face.

Harry gasps a scandalized, “Niall!”

Niall only laughs at him. Asshole. “I’m only asking because I’m your best friend and I’m concerned,” he responds.

Best friend? Yeah, right. Biggest pain in Harry’s ass, maybe. The bane of Harry’s existence, more like. Though, the more Harry thinks about it, the more he realizes just how long it’s been since he’s had any sort of physical contact that isn’t a kiss on the cheek from his mother, or a hug from Niall. It was at least six months before July 23rd he’s pretty sure. And now, 186 days worth of July 23rds later… Add the two, carry the one... it’s officially been way too long. 

Fucking _Niall_. 

(For daring to bring that up and remind Harry how lonely he is.)

Fucking _time loop_. 

(For picking a time at the peak of his single-dom for him to have to relive. Couldn’t it have chosen the time where he was in love and everything was good? No? Rude). 

“Concerned about my sexual habits?” Harry inquires, waggling his eyebrows and attempting to scooch his chair closer to Niall’s. “Nialler, mate, if I didn’t know any better I’d think you were flirting with me…”

This time Niall hits Harry with the can and swats at him to move away. Harry laughs.

“Concerned about your _mental health,_ mate,” Niall says after he successfully pushes Harry back to his previous spot on the patio. “It can’t be good for anyone to go that long without getting di-”

Harry rolls his eyes. “Do not finish that sentence.”

“I’m just saying Haz, you might as well be a born again virgin at this point. Might sign you up for a convent meself, you’d fit right in.”

_Why_ has Harry’s dick been the topic of conversation this many times today?

Okay, twice. 

Okay, once in his head and once in real life.

Still!

“I hate you,” He tells Niall. “I really, really hate you. I’m not interested in him, okay? Plus, even if I was, it would simply be for the good of the universe and not for my own sexual fulfillment. I’m not a caveman who can’t keep it in his pants, I’m a respectable young man who knows when sex is and is not appropriate.”

“Keep telling yourself that, mate,” Niall manages as he laughs at Harry. Harry scowls and reaches for another piece of pizza, running over all the ways he could commit murder against his best friend and get away with it in his head. He comes up blank.

Fucking Niall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again, follow my twitter @bxbycakeshxzza. also here's a link for my 'songs playing in a coming of age netflix original' playlist cuz i feel like it suits the vibe of this whole thing ;))) (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/10FBFdyrs5K41I4fAyx7pz?si=F4i07T_bRiOjXM7DymTp_Q)

**Author's Note:**

> follow my twitter: @bxbycakeshxzza


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